Pages

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

How Working Out is Just Like Eating a Reese’s

During my 500-hour personal trainer certification
program, I learned a lot of things about exercise from the instructor, Barry Fritz. One of the most important was the necessity of having a rationale
for whatever it is you’re doing at the gym.

I like to make the analogy to eating
a Reese’s. (Actually, I’ve never made this analogy before, but hear me out.) We
know there’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s. Likewise, there’s no wrong way to
design a workout — as long as you have a rationale.

I guess it’s not a great analogy, since it doesn’t
matter the slightest bit why you chopped your Reese’s into a hundred tiny
pieces, organized them from smallest to largest, and ate every third morsel. Oh well. Back to exercise.

What I mean is that you could put together what
might seem to be a completely bone-headed training program. You appear to make
every “mistake” in the book. Yet if you can justify all of your choices with sound logic, then your program may not be so bone-headed after all.

A few examples are in order. One of my goals
when I’m designing workouts for myself and my clients is to get as much work
done as possible in the shortest amount of time. This principle is referred to as training “density.”

The easiest way to increase density is using
supersets. A superset is two or more exercises strung together with minimal rest
in between. Generally speaking, when designing supersets my goal is to “spread
fatigue out.” I accomplish this goal by grouping “non-competing” exercise together,
or exercises that use different muscles.

The simplest example of non-competing exercises
are upper and lower body exercises (e.g. squats and pull-ups). Of course, you
could also throw in a core exercise or “locomotion” exercise to make it a “tri-set"
(superset of three exercises).

Here’s where the potential bone-headedness
comes in. What’s “wrong” with the following tri-set:

Deadlifts – Pull-ups – Farmer’s
Carries

It seems to satisfy this idea of non-competing
exercises (lower body, upper body, and locomotion). But there’s one problem.
Every exercise taxes your grip. You might be okay the first round through. But
by the time you come back around to deadlifts after farmer’s carries, your
forearms will probably be smoked. Which means you’ll have to rest longer and
density goes by the wayside.

Notice, though, that I put “wrong” in
quotes. For Average Joe or Jane, the above tri-set probably isn’t optimal. But for
Above Average Joel or Janet who are, say, mixed martial artists who require
insane grip strength for their sport, that’s actually a perfect combination.

Let’s play again:

Push-ups – Bear Crawl – Plank

We have an upper body exercise, locomotion, and
core. What could possibly be “wrong” with this lovely trio
of movements?

Despite targeting different primary muscles, they all
rely heavily on the core. It's essentially three planks in a row, the first two just
with moving parts. For people who
are newer to training, they’d probably tap out due to abdominal fatigue well
before maximally stimulating their uppers and lowers.

Moreover, to complete this triad the exerciser
would never have to get up off the ground. “Level changes” are a powerful fat
loss tool. That is, it’s good to get up and down off the ground and change
positions between exercises. A balanced attack of floor-based, seated, and
standing exercises is just what the doctor ordered.

Once again, though, for athletes and advanced trainees with strong cores and less fat to lose — or people looking specifically for the ab work — this exercise grouping would be dandy. It's all context-dependent.

Now that we’re really having fun, how about this bad boy:

Deadlifts – Rows – Ab Wheel
Roll-outs

This one may seem harmless, but it’s actually a
subtle killer. Although the deadlift is primarily a lower body exercise, it
also requires good activation of the back muscles to keep the bar from drifting
away from your body. Lo and behold, rows are a back exercise, and ab wheel
roll-outs also hit the arms and back (in addition, of course, to the core).

This wouldn’t be a big deal if you were deadlifting light weight. But if the weight is heavy, you probably don’t want
spaghetti arms when you're going to lift it. Unless, of course, you DO want spaghetti arms and your goal is
to train your deadlift in the presence of a fatigued upper body! Get it?As you can see, just like there’s no wrong way to eat a Reese’s,
there’s no wrong way to combine exercises. There are only right and wrong ways
to do it for the person at hand and the goal in mind.

Always consider the exercises you've selected carefully — beyond just the primary muscle they target. Consider what position they place the exerciser in. Consider whether they are grip-intensive, rely heavily on the core, or utilize other muscles in an accessory role.

Also consider the person. How long have they been training? What are their strengths and weaknesses? Will this grouping of exercises get them closer to their goals or just tire them out nonsensically?

As long as you have a sound rationale for doing what you're doing, you're cool. It's when exercises are strewn together haphazardly with no rhyme or reason that everything goes to hell, you develop a peanut allergy, and you can no longer enjoy Reese's.With that, I’m off in search of some peanut butter cups.